Posts by Alyson Shane
Some hot takes for you
- by Alyson Shane
Want to know the worst thing about 2018? Political correctness.
Just like video killed the radio star, political correctness is systematically killing so many forms of self expression and creativity, especially for writers and other creatives like yours truly.
Here is a short list of things I've started to blog about but have abandoned because I don't want to deal with the blowback, or potential perception of an assault on someone else's feelings through me sharing my thoughts on my world experience:
- Struggling with still wanting to enjoy Kevin Spacey's creative work despite all the allegations against him.
- Concerns about how the "body positivity" movement is causing our society to normalize unhealthy weight gain to the point that it will be detrimental not only to people's lives, but to our society as a whole because unhealthy people place a greater burden on our medical system.
- Issues with the lack of nuance and journalistic integrity surrounding how Babe.com reported on Aziz Ansari.
- Posts exploring how the rejection of Margaret Atwood - a woman who has literally spent her professional career and decades of her life as an author and advocate for equality and feminism - can be so easily dismissed as "out of touch" by a new generation of feminists who dismiss her criticism of the #metoo movement because they've had the luxury of not having to spend decades advocating for what they have.
- Thoughts on the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal and how if the general populace put half as much effort to monitoring how and where they shared their data as they do on being mad at Facebook for the repercussions of a security issue they resolved four or five years ago then we may not have been in this mess in the first place.
- Further posts on how, as a marketer and someone who relies on data from Facebook to do my job (which is creating content and ads that grow businesses, present problems to solutions our clients' customers have, and provide services that provide the revenue to keep people employed), tactics like logging the places you visit on non-Facebopk websites provides heaps of valuable data to help us better understand human behaviour in aggregate, and that it's not actually as sinister as people make it out to be.
- Further posts on how companies like Google, Reddit, YouTube, and others track every move you make online and how, in aggregate, basically nothing we say or do is really that "safe" or "private" and the best solution is either to a) nope out entirely or b) accept that the drawback of being able to use Google Maps on your phone and receive updates based on your location is that maybe you need to be a little more mindful with what you do online. Or get okay with being watched because that's the age we live in, because your government is just as invested in your data as Facebook is.
But I don't because I'm a wimp. Or because I worry that these views, just stated out loud, will affect my business. Or because I just don't want the damn fight.
I'm tired of being fired up all the time.
Is anyone else tired of the "call out" culture we live in?
Is anyone else just looking for like, a nice, chill opportunity to explore some issues you think are important and worth discussing without someone jumping down your throat about it
(and potentially sending you death threats and crazy stuff like that about it)
because I am. I'm so tired of worrying about hurting other people's feelings by simply expressing an opposing viewpoint. I'm a smart and well-read and thoughtful person, but I often feel smothered by the political correctness of the age we live in
and I'm not even a dang conservative. I almost feel bad for them!
Almost.
If you knew you were gonna die, what would you do?
- by Alyson Shane
If death was looking me in the eye here are a few things I'd do:
blog every day and record what a total mindfuck impending death must be
call my Grandma and tell her I love her
book a trip to somewhere crazy like Machu Picchu or Morocco or the Galapagos Islands
take a million photos with the people I love
say goodbye to my clients and my business
cry a lot
watch ghost movies and plan my next moves as a poltergeist
(just kidding - I don't believe in ghosts)
make sure Toulouse and BJ are in a loving home
listen to a lot of Leonard Cohen
give all my earthly possessions away
(except my MacBook Pro, signed copy of Hospital Music, and photos of my Grandma)
but I know that most of the stuff I have is pretty run-of-the-mill and not all that interesting
but lemme tell you if I had a trove of diamonds, rubies, rare coins, gold nuggets, and expensive stuff I would 100% hide that stuff in a chest and create a puzzling poem and treasure map to go with it
because if yr gonna die anyway you may as well use it as an opportunity to make some people happy, or excited
and heck, maybe some people will even take an adventure because of it
which is the best thing to do while you're still alive, imo.
We're bingeing the best show right now
- by Alyson Shane
It's called The Terror and it's living up to the hype.
If you haven't seen The Terror it's a new show on AMC about one of the scariest things ever which is Arctic Exploration in the mid 1800's.
Similar to space exploration which also scares the living daylights out of me, Arctic exploration is a freaky concept because you are literally in a place that wants to kill you.
Nothing lives in space.
Nothing lives on the top of mountains.
Nothing (much) lives in the Arctic and whatever is there
like polar bears for example
want to kill you just as much - if not more - than the elements.
I first heard about Franklin's Lost Expedition a few years ago when I was on a Wikipedia reading binge session about Victorian-era explorers which probably started after getting interested in Earnest Shackleton after his name was worked into a song by The Weakerthans that I really like.
Except even though Shackleton died while out exploring, he died from a heart attack and not from any of the scary and terrible ways the guys on the Franklin Expedition died which included starvation, hypothermia, tuberculosis, lead poisoning, and scurvy.
None of which sound like ways I want to die.
Apparently the men left in the Franklin Expedition also resorted to cannibalism which adds an extra later of wtf to the whole scenario, because eating your friends because you're trying not to die is like an extra layer of messed up.
We aren't finished the series but even though it's awful there's a part of me that hopes that the show goes there. Good horror is a story that holds a mirror up to us and shows us a reflection of ourselves that we'd rather not see.
Not to say that I wouldn't totally eat you if that's what it came down to.
Sorry/not sorry.
Who are you, really?
- by Alyson Shane
Alyson Shane is an idea of a person that I got from my parents, originally. I was almost a Jennifer (thanks for nixing that one, Dad) but instead I got an unusual name with a "y" in it which has served me well because Alyson Shane works well together and people notice when your name is spelled differently.
It helps you stand out.
My last name, Shane, doesn't tie me to any historical significance. Beyond a few other people who share it we have no collective family history, no looking back on forefathers. No great-great-great grandsomethings. It was a name someone chose, or was chosen for us, when a generation once or twice removed came to Canada.
So that's out.
I can call myself a lot of things:
Business owner.
Friend.
Partner.
Writer.
Blogger.
Speaker.
Cyclist.
Gardener.
But none of those things actually apply to me. Those are things I do. Ways I spend my time and energy. How I make a living. The stuff I do in my free time. The ways I direct my energy.
Sometimes I look at my cat and I think What are you to you? Do you self-identify? What do you think about?
And while my cat's thought process is probably something like: food food food water sleep sleep pets pets pets jealousy jealousy jealousy pets pets pets sleep sleep sleep
it's probably happening in the weird nonverbal ways our bodies tell us to go to bed or that it's time to have a snack. My cat doesn't have a sense of self or an identity to speak of. He wants food and pets and doesn't think about his religion (or lack thereof) or which type of bread he prefers (sourdough) or the stuff he likes to do in his spare time (write, paint, garden, cycle.)
Homeboy just hangs out.
But us weird humans, we layer on all these meanings and ascribe all this significance to things that, at the end of the day, are just ideas and labels.
My business could fold. My partner could leave me. I could lose both my hands in a freak laundry accident and never write or blog again.
Stripping away the labels I apply to myself or have had applied to me is scary because when you stop identifying with labels and actions you get left with... what?
Your weird, messy insides.
Your meat sack that carries around all these ideas that have been assigned to you, or that you've applied to yourself, or that you continue to carry around and identify with because it makes things a little less scary.
Which is why taking the time to create art and amplify yr creative output are so important.
Real creative output can bypass all the bullshit ideas and labels and just put yr shit out there, the real, inside-out fear and stress and struggle and joy stuff.
So like Jim Carrey says "you just play your part as best you can" and go about your day trying to shape the ideas you have about yourself and create stuff whenever possible without getting too wrapped in your self-judgment, idea-based BS.
For me that's writing a blog post about the ideas that make up who we are as people and how much it freaks me out
and not worrying about the end result feels like.
I've been learning to drive which is weird
- by Alyson Shane
And if you didn't know that - surprise! - I've never taken a road test to receive my full license.
But since I'm 30 and it's a useful skill to have I figured I should probably start pulling my weight and learn to drive so I can pay people back for all the times they've dd'ed my around.
(Thanks fam.)
And if I'm being totally honest with you I really don't get the hype.
But I've never been a "car person" if I'm being honest.
One time when I was 17 or so my friend Nat and I took the bus to Polo Park which was was over two hours away from our house in the dumb suburbs on the bus.
(Probably still is, too, given at the rate our transit has improved. Geez.)
And we took the bus and went to the mall and had what I thought was a good time hanging out to and from the mall. But when we got off the bus back in our suburb she told me
"That was the worst experience. I'm never taking the bus to the mall again. From now I'm only going to drive to the mall."
And I remember thinking girl we just spent the last several hours hanging out and you're saying they sucked because you had to sit on the bus? And that made me feel like trash, because I'd thought we'd had a good time hanging out and not having to pay attention to the road or other drivers. We'd actually hung out with each other.
It was around then I decided that driving turns a lot of people into assholes.
It was also around then that I decided that I didn't want to risk becoming one of those assholes so I moved downtown and never got around to getting my license as a result. It's a surprisingly easy thing to put off doing when you can walk, bike, or take public transit anywhere you need to go.
Besides once you hit 21 or 22 everyone else around you has their license, so even if you moved downtown and didn't actually need a car like I did, I still knew someone with access to one in case I ever needed a ride or help getting something from IKEA.
But it's prudent to have yr license in the event of an emergency, and if I ever have kids I'm sure I'd want to have a car around and not wait on a cab or Uber or whatever if we need to get to a hospital asap.
So I've been driving here and there and everywhere and while it's not the worst thing it's still not this omg thing that people seem to love.
People tell me that it'll get better when handling the car is just muscle memory but
I don't want to start feeling like driving a car is routine and boring because that's how accidents happen. I've never been in a car accident and I'd prefer to keep it that way thank you very much.
Gotta stay sharp af behind that wheel.
Wish me luck, folks!
Today is John's birthday
- by Alyson Shane
We've been together for almost four years but we've actually known each other a lot longer. 2010, I think, back when we were dating other people. We met at a baby shower for a mutual friend and he was wearing a sweater vest. I thought he looked sharp.
He's a very silly person and I've always liked being around people who can laugh at themselves and who can take a joke. Ribbing people as a form of endearment is one of my favourite past times and it's always nice to encounter another fellow pest in the wild. I always liked having him around.
One of the things you should know about John is that he will always keep you honest. He's very blunt and to-the-point which can really rub some people the wrong way. Heck, it rubs me the wrong way sometimes but I know he means well so I let it go.
There are worse things in life than your partner being as honest with you as they can, I figure.
That unflinching honesty has helped me grow a lot as a person which is something I think we should look for in a long-term partner. If you're going to be with someone for as long as you can you don't want them to stay the exact same, right?
Right.
It's also super inspiring to be around someone who works as hard as he does. Dude is super-motivated and lives and breathes whatever he's into.
Sometimes it can be exhausting but honestly I envy his ability to sink suuuper deep down into a problem and really lose himself in solving it. I need to get up and stretch and pee and take coffee breaks and pet the cats too often. I write in lots of short, intense bursts of a few hours max but John can put his head down and work all day and just give 'er.
He works super hard and really believes in what he's doing and it's honestly the coolest thing to be able to spend my time hanging out with someone who is so motivated.
He makes me want to do good stuff, and in turn I do good stuff, too.
He also pushes himself to try new things and not turn down an adventure. Because of him I've held a crab at the ocean floor, climbed to the top of a Mayan pyramid, taken busses across foreign countries in the night, and pushed myself mentally and emotionally farther than I wanted or expected to could go.
It's pretty crazy to think of the impact that someone can have on your life if you think about it.
Honestly though, I just feel thankful that he wants to spend his free time hanging out with me even though I'm moody and difficult and I always drink the last sip of club soda when we're sharing. It's nice to spend your days with your best friend, and to continue to be best friends after all these weird, wild years.
He also calls his mom a lot and tells her he loves her, which is another a sign he's a super-solid dude.
Happy birthday to John, my super solid dude <3
I hate Q&A style interviews
- by Alyson Shane
I find them meandering and too long and just a bore to read.
One of the habits I've picked up from reading Hemingway and dealing with clients from NYC is brevity.
I used to be verbose af but these days I can't handle articles that tell me they have facts in them but make me dig through a bunch of "Oh, so you think..." questions and long, meandering answers that circle around the actual answer.
Ugh.
I'm sitting a Barn Hammer on my second beer (Coffee Black Rye Pale Ale) and I just finished putting together questionnaires for this year's TEDxWinnipeg speakers.
One of my jobs as a volunteer on the Social Committee is to coordinate doing these Q&A's with our speakers and as I was sending them out I realized I couldn't remember the opposite of a "Q&A style interview" and remembered that back in the day when I wrote for Spill Magazine I had to do an interview with a local band that I really, really struggled with.
So I looked up the email thread from 2014 and remembered that "narrative style interview" is the name of the interview style that I prefer these days.
I also realized that when I wrote the article I hated narrative-style interviews because I still wasn't confident in my abilities as a writer.
At the time I pushed back at my editor, Stephen, who is a magnificent human being, and said that I was really struggling with doing an interview where I didn't just transcribe what the musicians had said verbatim during our chat.
He told me:
Alyson, you're selling yourself short. You are a great writer and what you put together makes for great music journalism. All I ask is that you don’t close this door on yourself just yet.
Which blew me away because the part I remember is how anxious the exchange made me feel, not what his response to my anxiety was.
(Ain't that always the way?)
I wrote for The Spill for several more years and did heaps of album reviews and interviews, including the time I interviewed Thomas Dolby from his houseboat The Nutmeg of Consolation where I was so nervous that I thought I would swallow my tongue during the interview.
It taught me that when you know good people who push you and support you, eventually you start to realize that you can do anything you put yr mind to.
And with some luck you, too, can be as concise as Hemingway.
Or at least you can give it the 'ol college try.
What's the thing you love most about your job?
- by Alyson Shane
a high school kid asked me that when I was speaking to his class the other day.
It's been a while since I've been in a high school or even around a lot of teenagers at once, and I was impressed by how smart and thoughtful they all were because I remember most of us being stupid af back in high school.
I was in there to talk to a senior math class about how I use math in my work which was weird to me at first because if there's one thing I really hate, it's math.
But when the math you do is wrapped up in something else that you like to do it's not so bad.
I spend a lot of time calculating acronyms like ROI and CAC and CPC and CLV and it's not my favourite thing but it helps me make informed decisions and become better at what I do.
And it's probably good to hear about math in a real-world context vs. only using it in school like most of us did growing up.
So yr girl put some slides together and we talked about the wonderful world of marketing formulas, which wound up getting more laughs than I'd expected, but not for the reasons that I'd anticipated.
(Don't ask.)
But overall it went well and when we'd wrapped the presentation we did a Q&A session. They asked me about my career, my degree, my plans for the future. One kid asked me how much I made which I sidestepped because it's none of his dang business.
But I did tell him that being a business owner has changed my earning potential, and that not relying on a single job snd paycheque wasn't as scary as I used to think it would be.
Which I hope some of them really heard, because I could have used hearing something like that at their age.
Mostly though we just talked about social media.
None of the kids use Facebook. Hardly anyone's on Twitter. Instagram is huge. Snapchat is dead
(and if high school kids are saying it, you know it must be true)
but everyone knows about LinkedIn all of a sudden even though it "used to be super lame" before.
They like the idea of using Vero but are worried that it's going to go the route of every social network and become monetized and ruined by changes to their algorithm, and then they'll have to move on to the next new app or social platform and go through it all over again.
Told you they're smart.
A few of them like writing but don't know how to be writers for a living, so I told them that in the age of the internet there are more ways to be a writer than being a journalist or trying to be the next Stephen King. We talked about copywriting and how my company works, what we do, how we help our clients.
I talked about how much I loved writing, and blogging, and rhetoric, and I feel super duper lucky that I stumbled my way into doing something for a living that allows me to do all of those things and then some.
And when that boy asked me what my favourite part about my job was it felt really nice to say
"doing stuff like this. Talking to you guys."
Because it's true.
I want to be a cat in my next life
- by Alyson Shane
If there's anything better in this world than being a well-loved house pet, I don't know what that is.
Yes as a human of course you get to eat amazing things. Mussels and oysters and lobster and sushi. Garlic toast and fresh sourdough and croissants. Spaghetti and meat balls. Fresh doughnuts.
And you get to drink coffee and beer and rum out of a coconut. You can make iced tea on a hot day or have a cup of Chai on a cold day. You can make hot toddies when you get sick.
As a human you get to ride your bike and marvel at the big trees in your neighbourhood. Or go fro a car ride and listen to Leonard Cohen on the radio. Or sit next to a big dam and watch the sun set and listen to the water roaring by.
You also get to read books and blogs and literature and if you're lucky you have a wifi connection thanks to the computer in your pocket that lets you look up any dang thing you want.
We have Wikipedia, for chrissakes!
But if I believed in reincarnation
(which I don't, but y'know)
I'd try to come back as a well-loved house pet.
Because food and alcohol and literature and adventure are great and all.
But on-demand belly rubs just can't be beat.
Plane thoughts
- by Alyson Shane
I'm on a flight right now.
Sitting in a middle seat between a quiet dude and a lady with a baby with big brown eyes. The baby keeps grabbing my hair a bit and pulling, which hurts but not too much, so I'm not too bothered.
We've been in the air for a few hours and I've finished reading The Handmaid's Tale, which is the book I brought for the trip. I've read it before, but it's been nice to revisit it given the current political climate and recent tv series starring Elizabeth Moss.
Margaret Atwood manages to be so quietly sinister in her writing. I forgot how upsetting this book was.
But now that I'm done I have nothing to do, so I'm writing this and looking over the dude's shoulder out the window.
(I covet window seats, but I didn't book these so it wasn't up to me.)
We're descending into Pearson Airport right now and I can see Toronto in the distance. The sun is setting and it's misty. I can see the dim outline of the CN Tower against the misty lake.
There's a big, wide highway that leads from a suburb
(Mississauga? Brampton? Oakville?)
into the heart of the city. Like a big, thick vein.
An artery for cars.
I used to know the names of these streets, once. I pored over Google Maps, memorizing the streets and picturing myself walking down their sidewalks.
Once upon a time I daydreamed about disappearing into this big, noisy metropolis. Forgetting my name, history, family.
All the things I knew or believed about myself.
Starting over.
Every city has that appeal for someone, I suppose. People looking to start over. For an opportunity. A big break. A culture shock.
Or just to get out of their own damn hometown.
Toronto used to be that to me, once. I was obnoxious with how much I wanted to live there. How I compared it - unfairly, of course - to Winnipeg.
(How annoying I must have been.)
It's weird to see it now and feel that same familiar pull. Like a fish hook in my navel, pulling me towards those towers of glass. The possibilities.
But we're about to land and if I'm being honest I can't wait to get back to Winnipeg.
I miss home.
